CRBA holds one of the most important private collections of Iberian Peninsula Coleoptera in Spain

Scientific collections have been a reference element to understand the traits and evolution of living beings in the natural environment since long ago. The new Vives & Vives (coleopterans) and Alberto Salat (artiodactyls) collections given to the CRBA, which have a great scientific and museum value regarding natural collecting in Spain, has been presented on June 16 at 11 h, in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology, in the event “Lʼevolució de les col·leccions zoològiques de la Universitat de Barcelona: del Gabinet de Ciències Naturals (1847) a lʼactual Centre de Recursos de Biodiversitat Animal (2016)” presided by Doctor Jordi Alberch, Vice-Rector of Research, Innovation and Transfer, and Doctor Gustavo Llorente, Dean of the Faculty of Biology.

During the event, Doctor Antoni Serra, Director of CRBA and member of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, talked about the origins and evolution of CRBA -born from the Natural Sciences Bureau of the Literary University of Barcelona in 1847- and emphasized on the scientific value of the zoological collections as scientific heritage of the University of Barcelona. Serra also introduced the new CRBA web server, an online platform open to the scientific community and general public which allows searching data related to the zoological material of the Centre from June 16 on. Eduard Vives, entomologist and CRBA collaborator, presented the Vives & Vives coleopteran collection. After the event in Aula Magna, the presentation followed with a visit to the space of the Animal Biodiversity Resource Centre where the new collections are, in the Faculty of Biology.

One of the most important private Iberian Coleoptera collections in Spain

The Vives & Vives Collection is made up by 20.000 models of coleopterans identified and prepared -they correspond to 61 families and 2.9040 species- and more than 200.000 which are not prepared. The exhibition is a donation by Eduard Vives, and is formed by the excellent collection his father, Joan Vives Duran (1918-2000), started. He was a prestigious entomologist from Terrassa who dedicated part of his life to the study of coleopterans (particularly ground beetles). Eduard Vives, who continued his fatherʼs naturalist task, is an expert in coleopterans of the family of longhorn beetles of the Iberian Peninsula, and is actually working on the South-Eastern Asiatic longhorn beetles.

QR codes to know about the distribution and conservation of mammals

CRBA will also be the headquarters of theAlberto Salat Collection, a recompilation of 177 pieces of 102 species and sub-species of different mammals (particularly artiodactyls) from around the world. This exhibition, placed since 1999 in the Jesús Maria Sant Gervasi School in Barcelona, will be from now on exposed at the CRBA with scientific and educational aims for all the interested public. Apart from the information posters with their classification, colloquial name and geographical placing of each exposed species, a QR code will give access to a CRBA website where the traits of each species are exposed, as well as their distribution area and the conservation status of the current communities.

CRBA, placed at the ground floor of the Ramon Margalef building of the Faculty of Biology, is a Support Service for Teaching and Research affiliated to the Faculty of Biology. The Centre, which is heir of the old Natural History Bureau of the University of Barcelona (created in 1847), has a room with spaces for temporary and permanent exhibitions, a laboratory to work on and prepare zoological models and check on collections, an administration office and a room used for storage. CRBA has recently enlarged their rooms with a scientific collection room, two exhibition rooms and two collection and bibliography reservoir rooms.